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how do you handle parent relationships? I'm trying to document a way to have EE & RE handle relationships so that the needs of both Admissions & Advancement are met.
Any hints?
__________________ Elaine Tucker Stewardship Coordinator St. Mark's School of Texas USA www.smtexas.org
how do you handle parent relationships? I'm trying to document a way to have EE & RE handle relationships so that the needs of both Admissions & Advancement are met.
Any hints?
Elaine -
What exactly do you mean? Do you have different criteria for parents in each database?
I have been working with both for about 5 years.
Jonathan Carter
Director of Information Management
The Blake School
Hopkins, Wayzata and Minneapolis Minnesota
I'm really looking for best practices - we have EE and RE and FE but have not integrated them -- so I'm searching for clients that HAVE integrated them successfully; looking for pitfalls (watch out fors....) good things etc.
I don't even know where to begin - I've read the documentation but find myself going round and round in circles..
ANY advice, suggestions etc would be greatly appreciated.
__________________ Elaine Tucker Stewardship Coordinator St. Mark's School of Texas USA www.smtexas.org
I'm really looking for best practices - we have EE and RE and FE but have not integrated them -- so I'm searching for clients that HAVE integrated them successfully; looking for pitfalls (watch out fors....) good things etc.
I don't even know where to begin - I've read the documentation but find myself going round and round in circles..
ANY advice, suggestions etc would be greatly appreciated.
I'm right there with you Elaine. I'm getting a lot of pressure to "Integrate" - which really isn't integration but just a syncronization. In RE ("my" database) we have one parent as the constituent with spouse and students/children as non-constituent relationships. I think in EE everyone has their own "constituent" record.
So, I too would love to hear from anyone who has successfully integrated!
Have you created a policy/procedures document yet? I think that's where we need to start...I'd love to see someone else's to get me started.
Jennifer Miller
Wakefield School
The Plains, Virginia
Had meetings/discussions/brainstorming sessions with our EE folks.
Decided on the following guidelines:
Everybody has their own record (since EE defaults to that) and all address/contact information on the RECORD will be for that specific individual.
4 Address types:
Home
Mailing
Business
Seasonal
4 phone types:
Home
Business
Mobile
Fax
(no more Mom home, Mom Business.... etc)
Now I'm cleaning the data in EE and RE to match the above guidelines. Since there are no constituent id's in EE, once I've cleaned the data in the record I'm putting our cons id from RE in the id field in EE and adding an action in EE that it "has been reviewed for integration project"
Our EE staff was very receptive (and excited) and open to any suggestions on improving processes;
Once I have the data cleaned accordingly from the above guidelines and the duplicates removed I'll update my progress on this post.
Thanks everyone.
__________________ Elaine Tucker Stewardship Coordinator St. Mark's School of Texas USA www.smtexas.org
I have been working exactly this as a main data clean up project since I started at my job at the end of April.
We were using both RE & EE with some integration and EE was using the "linked addresses" feature.
We had previously been moving all our parents back to nested relationships ("just like they had in version 6") unless it was a dual household, then mom and dad each had a primary record with the steps as a nested relationship
Then it was mapped over to RE the same way
whoever was directly attached to the student record (mom or dad) got the primary Constituency and the other was the spouse (non-constituent) likewise, and non-graduate was a non-constituent.
we were partially integrated when I started.
we did not do ANY data cleanup before upgrading RE or EE, nor before integrating.
PLEASE,,, for your own sanity do the address and phone type clean up BEFORE integrating!!!!
It is a nightmare to try and clean up after.
I can try and offer advise to anyone else working on a simlar project as to how I've been attacking the data clean up in both databases if you are interested.
I am by NO WAY close to being done,,,
In fact I am now having to skip ahead to un-nesting my nested relation ships (moving my non-constituent records to their own full blown records (which by the way BECAUSE of integration I will have a ton of duplicates to clean up after)
My IT director just realized that he can't move forward with OCC until the non-constituents are promoted,,,,, UGH,,,,
No policy and procedures yet,,, although it too is on my list,,,
I'd be more than happy to brainstorm with anyone who is interested
I have been working exactly this as a main data clean up project since I started at my job at the end of April.
We were using both RE & EE with some integration and EE was using the "linked addresses" feature.
We had previously been moving all our parents back to nested relationships ("just like they had in version 6") unless it was a dual household, then mom and dad each had a primary record with the steps as a nested relationship
Then it was mapped over to RE the same way
whoever was directly attached to the student record (mom or dad) got the primary Constituency and the other was the spouse (non-constituent) likewise, and non-graduate was a non-constituent.
we were partially integrated when I started.
we did not do ANY data cleanup before upgrading RE or EE, nor before integrating.
PLEASE,,, for your own sanity do the address and phone type clean up BEFORE integrating!!!!
It is a nightmare to try and clean up after.
I can try and offer advise to anyone else working on a simlar project as to how I've been attacking the data clean up in both databases if you are interested.
I am by NO WAY close to being done,,,
In fact I am now having to skip ahead to un-nesting my nested relation ships (moving my non-constituent records to their own full blown records (which by the way BECAUSE of integration I will have a ton of duplicates to clean up after)
My IT director just realized that he can't move forward with OCC until the non-constituents are promoted,,,,, UGH,,,,
No policy and procedures yet,,, although it too is on my list,,,
I'd be more than happy to brainstorm with anyone who is interested
Billie Jo
Billie Jo,
Any other "lessons learned"? especially regarding the EE functions that applicants & then enrolled students go through - like how to promote them to the next grade, what your enrollment status' are, do you do a daily update?
I'm just a sponge for any/all information that you have.
No full sentences necessary in your list (LOL); if it helps to just make a grocery type list I can deal with that...
THANKS!!!!!
__________________ Elaine Tucker Stewardship Coordinator St. Mark's School of Texas USA www.smtexas.org
Our progress so far:
Decided on the following guidelines:
Everybody has their own record (since EE defaults to that) and all address/contact information on the RECORD will be for that specific individual.
4 phone types:
Home
Business
Mobile
Fax
(no more Mom home, Mom Business.... etc)
Now I'm cleaning the data in EE and RE to match the above guidelines. Since there are no constituent id's in EE, once I've cleaned the data in the record I'm putting our cons id from RE in the id field in EE and adding an action in EE that it "has been reviewed for integration project"
Thanks everyone.
Elaine - Can you clarify for me about why you decided to limit your phone types? We currently have Mom work, Dad work, etc - so that those numbers will show up identifiable as owned by Mom or Dad on the Bio1 tab of the student.
If I have a shared Business # on Mom's record and a shared Business # on Dad's record - how will they appear on the student record?
Thanks -
Elaine - Can you clarify for me about why you decided to limit your phone types? We currently have Mom work, Dad work, etc - so that those numbers will show up identifiable as owned by Mom or Dad on the Bio1 tab of the student.
If I have a shared Business # on Mom's record and a shared Business # on Dad's record - how will they appear on the student record?
I can't answer for Elaine, but her system makes sense. The Business # is not a characteristic of the student, but of the student's mother. Since it's not a characteristic of the student, it does not belong on the student's record. If you want to look up the mother's work #, go to her record and look up her work #.
If you keep your database design clean, you can easily find the information you're looking for without cluttering up your database with extraneous table entries to distinguish between values that don't even belong on a record.
Drew
__________________ J. Drew Allen
Children's Hospital of Philadelphia
Crystal Reports and SQL Server Consultant
It is better to live your destiny imperfectly than to live an imitation of somebody else's life with perfection.
Elaine - Can you clarify for me about why you decided to limit your phone types? We currently have Mom work, Dad work, etc - so that those numbers will show up identifiable as owned by Mom or Dad on the Bio1 tab of the student.
If I have a shared Business # on Mom's record and a shared Business # on Dad's record - how will they appear on the student record?
Thanks -
The phone numbers for the parents will appear on their relationship tab in the students record.
I'm currently building a custom view for the admin office to use so that those fields are "readily seen" when they are looking at a record.
Also, when the integration comes along with student billing, RE & FE the phone numbers AND address types need to sync easily -- that can be accomplished by making sure that home in EE is home in RE & Student billing etc.
Thanks Drew - I couldn't of said it better myself.!
Cheers,
E
__________________ Elaine Tucker Stewardship Coordinator St. Mark's School of Texas USA www.smtexas.org
Last edited by Elaine Tucker; 09-09-2007 at 11:07 AM.
Reason: spelling error
a week and a hhalf ago I finished cleaning up 40, yes 40 different phone types in RE and EE
we now have 8
it makes the records and information real and distinguishable, as well as usefull as the student becomes an alumn, etc, etc
I am still working on this list to nest define my phone types for organizational use, so it may still change some , but the cleanup took me non-stop work for a week and a half
here's the list as ist stands now
business
cell
college
email
fax
home
pager
web address
clean up was a nightmare since global changes are nearly non-existent in EE for anyone other than student/applicants
I ended up globally deleting alot of things through RE that then went away through syncing, but the multiples of addresses , re-appearing of numbers, etc was a huge task
clean up was a nightmare since global changes are nearly non-existent in EE for anyone other than student/applicants
I ended up globally deleting alot of things through RE that then went away through syncing, but the multiples of addresses , re-appearing of numbers, etc was a huge task
Please visit the ideas page and VOTE for those areas in EE that need ENHANCEMENT.... I've already added a few, esp the one for global changes to INDIVIDUALS!
If you don't see an idea there that you want... ADD ONE!
Voting tally's will be taken next week and forwarded to Blackbaud so
vote.... vote.....vote!
__________________ Elaine Tucker Stewardship Coordinator St. Mark's School of Texas USA www.smtexas.org
Parent Relationships to Students for EE/RE Integration
I am wondering about the relationship types that must be used for Integration to work between EE and RE. We have spent significant time changing parent/guardian to mother or father with the reciprocal relationship being son or daughter in the EE individual records. Now that Integration is in site, I am worried that the RE relationships are not going to match up since they use parent/guardian and son or daughter for the reciprocal.
To those of you who have integrated, can you provide some guidance?
you want to make sure they match in both systems
use we user mother father son daughter stepfather mother-in-law grandmother spouse ex-spouse
I can email you our complete list for both systems if you are interested, but they need to be consistent in both it makes your life sooo much easier
Parent Relationships 
